Image for representation only.The 2016 National Education Policy (NEP), which is being formulated nearly three decades since the last policy was drawn up, recognizes the criticality of education as the most important vehicle for social, economic and political transformation. The focus of the proposed new NEP is on improving the quality of education and restoring its credibility. It seeks to create conditions to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, and promote transparency in the management of education. The HRD ministry had released the 43-page draft of the new education policy 2016, compiled from a more-than-200-page report submitted by a five-member committee headed by former cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian. The last date for contributions from citizens is 15 September.
When I interact with school leaders across the country under the aegis of our School Leaders Network, I am surprised that many of them are clueless about the details pertaining to the pointers mentioned in the NEP. The formulation of the NEP is one of the most important efforts the nation has ever seen. Quality education is the only way forward to drive our country’s development. Participation in this nation-building exercise should have been compulsory for every school leader, teacher and parent. Unfortunately, we are spending more time talking about change in conferences, without working for a change. The child should always be at the core of all our decisions.
Under the ‘policy framework’ head, the inputs list 21 pointers including pre-school education, curriculum renewal, school assessment, quality assurance, internationalization, faculty development in higher education, and language and culture in education. In my opinion, it is a well-drafted, well-edited and long-term strategic document, indicating a strong understanding and intent to reform school education, suiting the long-term need to impact the future generations. Implementing many of the pointers is surely an enormous task, but not impossible. I have identified five challenging areas for schools to prepare themselves as “change-makers”.
1. Data Governance
The education policy plans to usher in the next level of school governance where data and evidences would play a large role in driving schools to reforms and promote success in various government schemes. Many countries worldwide drive the education mandate through data management & analysis. For example, every data point produced by the school, such as assessment, records of teachers/students/parents, professional development, government schemes, attendance, fee collection, classroom observation, teacher performance, facilities and activities conducted, can be captured and analyzed, with an intent to build better stakeholder accountability. The IT reporting systems, both on desktop and mobile platforms, would turn out to be a powerful tool to govern school managements and their performance; and many of these tools would be developed inhouse by the government, in my view. Currently, we are at a scenario where data is captured but rarely analyzed for effective decision making. Data is always a neutral party when it comes to decision making.
2. Shift of Power
I can also see a push to shift the ownership stake of a school from the school management to the parents, in due course. This has already begun when it comes to fee regulation, Right to Information Act, parent teacher associations, etc., but I expect the school accreditation to have a criterion that measures parent feedback. This would “move the needle.” Many of our schools are hardly prepared for this shift and the government will have to do a lot of mentoring for the school managements.
Usually, change happens either through one’s own realization and willingness, or forcefully through regulation or a court mandate. I am a strong believer in making schools develop themselves the former way, with the government playing the role of a mirror rather than a doer. This is important as schools have such a lot of onus on the lives of young children and their future as responsible Indian citizens.
3. External inspectors
The school quality assessment and accreditation system, once established, is proposed to cover all aspects of school functioning, including scholastic and co-scholastic domains, physical infrastructure, teacher management, school leadership, learning outcomes, and satisfaction of pupils and their parents/guardians. This would be a direct entry of ‘external inspectors’ to our classrooms and could gradually result in grading of schools, which could then be linked to several other privileges, concessions, benefits, aid and schemes. School accreditation will be a game-changer in school education if it is able to ensure quality standards and benchmarking.
I return to my earlier wish of seeing the government playing the role of a mirror and enabling the schools to form their own school-development committees, working with their various stakeholders for their own progress. This is what happened in Dubai schools when school inspections were introduced as regulations. We recently established a school leaders network, which is currently working with multiple school leaders in different parts of the country; where school leaders are paired to each other, working to rise together to improve each other on specific improvement priorities. The only language we speak is of school improvement, not activism.
Accreditation of school boards is another process which can deviate the understanding of quality deliverables of boards among parents and students. Focus on improved school governance will involve a lot of effort on professional development, processes and systems adapting to frameworks, and lots of documentation which is currently not practice in many schools.
4. No-detention
It is mentioned that the present provisions of the no-detention policy will be amended, as it has seriously affected the academic performance of students. The no-detention policy will be limited up to class V and the system of detention will be restored at the upper-primary stage. In my view, we should introduce what Cambridge does in their assessment: conduct checkpoint tests which offer learners feedback about their strengths and challenges in the key curriculum areas of their subjects, both at grade 5 and grade 7. Each learner then can receive a statement of achievement and a diagnostic feedback report, giving schools detailed information and parents extra trust in the feedback they receive. We should strongly bring a shift in the way students look at assessment and encourage student-led conferences with an aim to build their accountability to their performance.
5. Diversity in the classrooms
During my school days, we used to have children from different economic strata all studying together as peer learners. A bond of ‘empathy’ was developed among these diverse learners, which contributed to helping them work with teams in the future. Over the years, with the rising prices/fees, we have unfortunately disturbed this diversity which is fundamental to classroom teaching and learning. Today, we see ‘rich’ children going to ‘rich’ schools and ‘under-served’ children going to ‘affordable private schools’ or ‘free’ government schools. I am extremely excited to witness some state governments, such as Kerala, Delhi, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, working to improve the government schools. I hope fees or economic status do not become the indicators to pursue quality education. The admission process does play a huge role in strengthening the diversity, which needs to go beyond the Right to Education Act.
So, for those of us seeking change, where should we look? Where does change actually come from? As educators, we need to ‘move the needle.’ And no time is more perfect than now.
(The author has deep experience in school education, having managed and established several schools in India and abroad. He is currently director of RMinds Education, a school-development company, and co-founder of School Leaders Network, which works to improve and develop schools, especially affordable private schools. He recently extended his work to Kerala.)
